Airbus a-380

The 555 seat, double deck Airbus A380 is the most ambitious civil aircraft program yet. When it enters service in March 2006, the A380 will be the world's largest airliner.

Airbus first began studies on a very large 500 seat airliner in the early 1990s. The European manufacturer saw developing a competitor and successor to the Boeing 747 as a strategic play to end Boeing's dominance of the very large airliner market and complete Airbus' product line-up.

Airbus began engineering development work on such an aircraft, then designated the A3XX, in .June 1994. Airbus studied numerous design configurations for the A3XX and gave serious consideration to a single deck aircraft which would have seated 12 abreast and twin vertical tails. However, Airbus settled upon a twin deck configuration, largely because of the significantly lighter structure required.

Key design aims include the ability to use existing airport infrastructure with little modifications to the airports, and direct operating costs per seat 15-20% less than those for the 747-400. With 49% more floor space and only 35% more seating than the previous largest aircraft, Airbus is ensuring wider seats and aisles for more passenger comfort. Using the most advanced technologies, the A380 is also designed to have 10-15% more range, lower fuel burn and emissions, and less noise.

The A380 would feature an advanced version of the Airbus common two crew cockpit, with pull-out keyboards, for the pilots, extensive use of composite materials such as GLARE, and four turbofan engines now under development.

Several A380 models are planned: the basic aircraft is the 555 seat A380-800 and high gross weight A380-800, with the longer range A380-800R planned. The A380-800F freighter will be able to carry a 150 tonne payload⁵ and is due to enter service in 2008. Future models will include the shortened, 480 seat A380-700, and the stretched, 656 seat, A380-900. (The -700, -800, and -900 designations were chosen to reflect that the A380 will enter service as a "fully developed aircraft" and that the basic models will not be soon replaced by more improved variants).

With orders and options from nine world-renowned customers (Air France, Emirates (the first customer), Federal Express, International Lease Finance Corporation, Lufthansa, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic), the Airbus A380 was officially launched on December 19, 2000, and production started on January 23, 2002. More airlines have placed orders since. The out of sequence A380 designation was chosen as the "8" represents the twin decks. The entry into commercial service, with Singapore Airlines, is scheduled for March 2006.

A380 final assembly will take place in Toulouse, France, with interior fitment in Hamburg, Germany. Major A380 assemblies will be transported to Toulouse by ship, barge and road.

Falcons help pulkovo stay free of bird strikes

Mid-air collisions of planes with birds often have fatal consequences. A bird hitting the engine or other important mechanism can have a serious effect on a plane’s ability to fly.

But some birds can be friends.

At St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport those friends are the four falcons "hired" by the airport operator this summer to guard the runways from other birds.

When the falcons rise into the sky over the airport, they act as red traffic lights to all those seagulls, crows and ducks that dare to fly near the landing and take-off routes.

Every year Pulkovo airport has incidents in which planes landing or taking off ram into birds flying above the airfield," said Andrei Sokolov, head of Pulkovo's ornithology service. "Everything we tried previously to counter this produced little result."

The airplane industry estimates at least 350 people have been killed as a result of bird strikes since the dawn of aviation. The problem is growing worse because of increasing numbers of birds and planes.

The deadliest bird-plane collision was in 1960, when an Eastern Airlines jet struck a flock of starlings and crashed into Boston Harbor, killing 62 people.

In 1995, an Air Force plane crashed in Alaska, killing 24 crewmen, after geese were sucked into one of the plane's engines.

Most bird strikes occur at low altitude during the most dangerous time of any flight, the take-off or landing.

When the falcons arrived at Pulkovo from a nursery in the city of Voronezh in early July there was a noticeable difference.

The falcons don't chase birds that approach the airport; they simply frighten other birds off with their presence because all other birds are by instinct afraid of the birds of prey.

Similar falcon or hawk services operate at airports in other countries, including the U.S., Germany, Britain and Poland.

Falcons are being introduced to quite a few other Russian airports.